June 28, 3038
It's damn hot. El Guapo glances at the Marauder's external temperature readout, and it shows 53 degrees celsius. The mech can handle it normally, of course, but once the PPCs get going, it's going to get nice and toasty in there. And even though everyone is in a battlemech, we're still having to trudge through a swamp. The liaison comes along in his Wolfhound, eager to mix it up as usual.

Of course, so are the Kurita guys we've found. Nothing serious, a short lance of light mechs and a mix of tanks and hovercraft. We'll need to be careful of the Von Luckner with its AC/20, and there's a Manticore and an LTV-4 with PPCs. And a surprisingly large amount of Bulldogs. At least there are plenty of small lakes where we can cool off.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

We advance south, while the Kurita units close in from the southeast.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Lighter enemy units advance.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Technically, we're in firing range of the Kurita light units, but it's maximum range and the ones we can target are hovercraft moving at maximum speed, so we conserve our ammo. On the plus side, it's really easy to set things on fire, which we do, so that we can get a little extra cover from the smoke. Risk of a major forest fire is pretty low, thankfully.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Stefan opens up on a Firestarter, missing, but setting an unintentional fire. El Guapo blasts the LTV-4 with two PPCs, given the crew some rattling teeth as they desperately try to discharge the static electricity build-up. The liaison adds a medium laser to the mix, but the hovertank's armor holds up.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

El Guapo goes into the water to cool off, but has absolutely terrible luck, slipping on an unexpected loose rock. The right leg goes stiff as water floods in to the minute crack, and our Marauder winds up in the drink.

Gbasden blasts the LTV-4 as it hovers over the water where El Guapo went down, breaching its turret armor and locking up the turret for good. Stefan and Isgrimnur open fire at a Wasp trying to hop through the woods. Stefan's lasers open up an armor breach, his LRMs ding the gyro, and then Isgrimnur's autocannon takes off the leg. Isgrimnur takes an autocannon round from a Vedette, but nothing serious.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

El Guapo's mech creaks and groans, but gets up. The LTV-4 decides not to stick around and zips off to the north. Stefan finishes off the Wasp, sending a flight of LRMs at the downed mech. Isgrimnur zaps the nearby Firestarter with a laser, then hacks off a large chunk of center torso armor.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

The light enemy units back off briefly, moving back towards their heavies.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

It's tempting to wade in there, axe swinging, but Isgrimnur decides against jumping into a crowd of Kurita units to the south. Best to wait until they separate a little. He does get in a solid laser shot on a Scorpion tank, though.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

There we go. The Firestarter takes Stefan's bait and jumps into a swamp, getting stuck. As Isgrimnur jumps in, the enemy mech turns to our Hatchetman instead, firing an alpha strike. Minor armor damage, while Isgrimnur blows away armor from the right arm and center torso. The hatchet comes down on the Firestarter's right leg, shearing off several actuators and forcing it to the ground. Stefan takes a couple of SRMs and an autocannon round, returning fire on a Bulldog.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

Somehow, the Firestarter manages to get up! Stefan avoids its firing arc and delivers several lasers, knocking it back down. Isgrimnur takes a couple of SRMs from the Bulldog, then stomps the nearby Vedette flat. A Jenner starts blasting away at Gbasden, but only does minor damage to the left arm.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

The Jenner continues harassing our Awesome, pinging a few SRMs off the rear armor. Gbasden swings the right arm around and blasts all the center torso armor off, then El Guapo takes a shot from down town and hits the 35-ton mech in the back, forcing it to a knee. Isgrimnur takes advantage of this by giving it a boot to the left leg, snapping a pair of actuators.

Our liaison disables a Packrat to the north (after spending about a minute firing at it non-stop with a large laser and missing half the time).

Round 12:

Spoiler:

The Jenner kind of gets up a little, but only to trip and fall down again.

Stefan jumps east and blows the turret off the Bulldog he's been working on, while Isgrimnur jumps south and perforates a Scorpion tank. Gbasden and the Manticore exchange PPC blasts, except he's got three to the Manticore's one, so the tank comes away with much worse damage.

Round 13:

Spoiler:

The Jenner isn't having much luck, staggering into the woods behind Gbasden then falling over. The right third of the mech comes off entirely.

Gbasden and Isgrimnur disable the Manticore with weapons fire, while Stefan takes down the Bulldog's companion Vedette with laser fire.

Round 14, 15:

Spoiler:

The Jenner probably wanted to run away. Instead, it tries to get up again, and falls over, ejecting the mechwarrior into a tree. We leave the wreckage behind and move south to engage the second Kurita group. Our liaison, who's already there, disables a Saracen hovertank with laser fire. "Show me what you've got, dracs!"

Round 16-19:

Spoiler:

We start shooting at the southern elements of the Kurita force. Isgrimnur disables an LRM Carrier with an alpha strike, while Stefan sends LRMs at a Von Luckner. The liaison's Wolfhound continues to put out a substantial amount of laser fire, melting the armor off a Galleon as it tries to get away from Gbasden's approaching footsteps.

That about does it, and the Kurita forces begin to retreat. But, they're retreating to the dropship, and we can't allow that to happen, at least not for their combat-capable units. Time to run them down as best we can.

Round 19:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur manages to disable a Bulldog, blowing off treads with an AC/10.

Round 20:

Spoiler:

We run the rest down - Gbasden plows PPCs into an AC/2 Carrier, busting through its armor, Stefan disables a Bulldog with the last of his LRMs, while the liaison takes out another Bulldog as it fires a last laser shot into Gbasden's center torso. In the confusion, Gbasden takes a headshot from a Bulldog. The mech shudders and shrapnel makes it into the cockpit, hitting our mechwarrior. But then, the firing stops, as the two remaining enemy units who haven't already retreat it gun it the south, trailing smoke.

Salvage isn't too great, but we grab the LRM Carrier and Manticore wrecks for spare armor and ammo. The rest gets packed up into the Jumbo. Isgrimnur, Stefan and the liaison split the confirmed kills on this one 4/5/4.

We'll need to make a decision. Does Alpha-One reinforce Beta-One in their drophship attack?

The info:

Beta-One is facing a Union-class dropship. The defending forces are a lance of Manticores, a Behemoth, and a Demolisher. Also featured are a Rifleman and a Stalker, plus a six assorted light and hover tanks.

The Von Luckner got away, but not without some serious damage. A helicopter and a hovertank escaped, so those three will be joining the party as well.

Alpha-One is a little beat up: Gbasden's Awesome is in the yellow for armor, with the center torso a nice shade of red. Also, his arm is broken, making it a lot harder and more painful to shoot. And probably medically inadvisable. The left leg on El Guapo's Marauder isn't really working, given that all the actuators have seized up, so he'll slow Alpha-One's arrival considerably. Isgrimnur's armor is in the yellow, and he's used about half of his autocannon ammo. Stefan is mostly green, but he's got only two LRM salvos left.

Our other (and not mutually exclusive) is to send in a secondary lance, e.g. Alpha-Three (Crusader, Rifleman, Catapult, Shadow Hawk 2K) or Beta-Three (Catapult, Vindicator, Wyvern, Whitworth), but it'll take them a while to get there, running the risk of even more reinforcements show up (it's possible that the dropship has other search parties out or some mechs sitting in its mech bays).

We could also pull back and leave the dropship. However, that leaves the it free to continue looking for our landing zone or drop in reinforcements on one of our targets in the future.

Split Alpha one. Send GBasden and The Guapo back to the barn while Stefan and I proceed onward and bring in Alpha 3 when they can get there.

Makes sense. Would it work for me to go to, only for Stefan and Isgrimnur to not wait for me? That is, I would get there when I get there, and it may be over before I do, but if not I could help at the end.

Dropships are tough nuts, so let's go in with the second string with armor. Mortis can't save us all!

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. - Nixon"I don't stand by anything." - Trump“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867

Alpha-One is a little beat up: Gbasden's Awesome is in the yellow for armor, with the center torso a nice shade of red. Also, his arm is broken, making it a lot harder and more painful to shoot. And probably medically inadvisable. The left leg on El Guapo's Marauder isn't really working, given that all the actuators have seized up, so he'll slow Alpha-One's arrival considerably. Isgrimnur's armor is in the yellow, and he's used about half of his autocannon ammo. Stefan is mostly green, but he's got only two LRM salvos left.

Our other (and not mutually exclusive) is to send in a secondary lance, e.g. Alpha-Three (Crusader, Rifleman, Catapult, Shadow Hawk 2K) or Beta-Three (Catapult, Vindicator, Wyvern, Whitworth), but it'll take them a while to get there, running the risk of even more reinforcements show up (it's possible that the dropship has other search parties out or some mechs sitting in its mech bays).

We could also pull back and leave the dropship. However, that leaves the it free to continue looking for our landing zone or drop in reinforcements on one of our targets in the future.

So, which will it be?

Assuming the only risk to cost/risk of bringing Alpha 1 is that they get shot up more and could potentially suffer severe damage (we are not getting more enemies by having them come), might as well have them come. They can always run if things are bad.

And yes, send in Alpha 3 (they look a bit heavier/more suited to an assault scenario than Beta 3?) Guessing Alpha3/Beta3 are faster than Alpha2/Beta2 (which I assume are heavier/slower)?

Alpha-One is a little beat up: Gbasden's Awesome is in the yellow for armor, with the center torso a nice shade of red. Also, his arm is broken, making it a lot harder and more painful to shoot. And probably medically inadvisable. The left leg on El Guapo's Marauder isn't really working, given that all the actuators have seized up, so he'll slow Alpha-One's arrival considerably. Isgrimnur's armor is in the yellow, and he's used about half of his autocannon ammo. Stefan is mostly green, but he's got only two LRM salvos left.

Our other (and not mutually exclusive) is to send in a secondary lance, e.g. Alpha-Three (Crusader, Rifleman, Catapult, Shadow Hawk 2K) or Beta-Three (Catapult, Vindicator, Wyvern, Whitworth), but it'll take them a while to get there, running the risk of even more reinforcements show up (it's possible that the dropship has other search parties out or some mechs sitting in its mech bays).

We could also pull back and leave the dropship. However, that leaves the it free to continue looking for our landing zone or drop in reinforcements on one of our targets in the future.

So, which will it be?

Assuming the only risk to cost/risk of bringing Alpha 1 is that they get shot up more and could potentially suffer severe damage (we are not getting more enemies by having them come), might as well have them come. They can always run if things are bad.

And yes, send in Alpha 3 (they look a bit heavier/more suited to an assault scenario than Beta 3?) Guessing Alpha3/Beta3 are faster than Alpha2/Beta2 (which I assume are heavier/slower)?

I would send Alpha 1 back to base and bring in Alpha 3. We don't need to take the risk of losing the Awesome or Marauder to a stray shot.

Alpha-One is a little beat up: Gbasden's Awesome is in the yellow for armor, with the center torso a nice shade of red. Also, his arm is broken, making it a lot harder and more painful to shoot. And probably medically inadvisable. The left leg on El Guapo's Marauder isn't really working, given that all the actuators have seized up, so he'll slow Alpha-One's arrival considerably. Isgrimnur's armor is in the yellow, and he's used about half of his autocannon ammo. Stefan is mostly green, but he's got only two LRM salvos left.

Our other (and not mutually exclusive) is to send in a secondary lance, e.g. Alpha-Three (Crusader, Rifleman, Catapult, Shadow Hawk 2K) or Beta-Three (Catapult, Vindicator, Wyvern, Whitworth), but it'll take them a while to get there, running the risk of even more reinforcements show up (it's possible that the dropship has other search parties out or some mechs sitting in its mech bays).

We could also pull back and leave the dropship. However, that leaves the it free to continue looking for our landing zone or drop in reinforcements on one of our targets in the future.

So, which will it be?

Assuming the only risk to cost/risk of bringing Alpha 1 is that they get shot up more and could potentially suffer severe damage (we are not getting more enemies by having them come), might as well have them come. They can always run if things are bad.

And yes, send in Alpha 3 (they look a bit heavier/more suited to an assault scenario than Beta 3?) Guessing Alpha3/Beta3 are faster than Alpha2/Beta2 (which I assume are heavier/slower)?

I would send Alpha 1 back to base and bring in Alpha 3. We don't need to take the risk of losing the Awesome or Marauder to a stray shot.

The Guap is in the Maruader, his mad skillz will save his azz! Just have him lead the way and the rest of you will be fine.

El Guapo wrote:I'm just glad that my talents are finally being appreciated.

Convincing the leader to go and get himself shot on the battlefield is a time-honored tradition of disgruntled scrubs since old days on Earth.

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. - Nixon"I don't stand by anything." - Trump“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867

"This is Beta-One-One. I'm looking at this dropship, and they're lighting up their engines and packing up. I don't know if we can take them on without backup, but if we don't hit them now, they're leaving."

Gbasden winces as the adrenaline fades and the broken arm makes itself known. "Understood. Alpha-One-Three and Alpha-One-Four, proceed to reinforce Beta-One. Alpha-Two, return to base with me. I'm not going to be any good over there with a broken arm, and... "

El Guapo replies, somewhat indignant. "Major, other than that leg, my mech is almost untouched. A dropship's engines take maybe 90 minutes to start up. I can make it!"

"Fine." Gbasden says through grinding teeth as stars spark in his vision due to jostling. "Just don't blame me if you show up and the fight is over. What else do we have in the area that can back up Beta-One?"

"Aircraft." suggests Isgrimnur. "I don't mean to shoot down, I mean, use our aircraft. They can get there in time."

----

So that's what happens. Isgrimnur and Stefan move to reinforce Beta-One immediately, with El Guapo trailing behind at about 1/3 of their speed. Alpha-Air (a Stuka, a Shilone and a Lucifer) is deployed rapidly - there's no time to load bombs or anything, but they can still do strafing runs. Beta-One launches their attack with the faster elements of Alpha-One about thirty seconds away, along with the aircraft.

The opposing force, as expected, is a mixture of light and heavy tanks, with a pair of mechs in attendance. The tanks must have gotten here by some other means, since a Union isn't exactly known as an armor transport.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

At least, this time, Beta-One didn't run out directly within laser range of the dropship. Just LRM range. But he doesn't have *that* many LRM launchers, just two per 180-degree firing arc. And we'll have to advance to PPC range to inflict any serious damage. On the plus side, there's a nice lake where our Awesomes can drop down and cool off.

And, as an added bonus, we caught the Dracs with their pants down and their heavies are all on the wrong side of the dropship. And one of their hovertanks crashes into a tree as Zarathud points the Awesome's PPCs at it. But that's not our mechwarrior's real target. The dropship takes five PPC hits and a salvo of LRMs, melting away a substantial amount of armor. Zenn7 takes a single PPC shot in return, and light autocannon fire plinks off Zarathud's armor.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

That's about as far as we go. Nice and cool. Zenn7 absorbs some LRMs but stays upright effortlessly. We nail the dropship with five PPC more PPC shots and a few LRMs from Moley. The armor indicator on its left side turns yellow.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

LordMortis annihilates a Pegasus that tries to circle around the back of our mechs. Zenn7 smirks as a PPC shot from the dropship boils water instead of hitting his mech, and then we score six more PPC hits on it. It's going pretty well, so far.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur and Stefan arrive from the north, and our aircraft streak in as well. Zenn7 takes some PPC and autocannon fire from the dropship, but armor holds up. The Union takes six more PPC shots, blasting off armor plates. Stefan empties the last of his LRMs into the dropship as well.

Our Lucifer uses its exclusively laser-based armament to disable a Scimitar hovertank. It takes some damage as well, but nothing serious. The Shilone targets the Behemoth and puts a laser and some LRMs through a weak spot in the right armor (uncovered by previous laser blasts), destroying the assault tank's engine and blowing out some internal equipment as well. It takes some AA fire, damaging the aircraft's fire control system. The Stuka, meanwhile, blows away a Scorpion tank entirely.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The dropship is still in the yellow, but we continue blasting away as the Kurita units are momentarily distracted by our aircraft. A PPC shot flies into one of the Union's mech bays, sending a cloud of debris flying out, while Zarathud blows away a medium laser turret. Our Lucifer takes a little damage, with an autocannon shot hitting the sensor cluster at the front of the aircraft. Zenn7 takes some more LRMs, but armor continues to hold. Still, it'll be time to pull our Awesome back soon.

Round 6:
[storage medium damaged]
Another six PPC shots to the dropship, plus four from Stefan as he jumps into a nearby lake. Zarathud blows away the docking collar, while Stefan scores a hit through the weakened left side, destroying another medium laser. Zenn7's armor absorbs its last PPC, LRM and autocannon salvo - there's technically armor left on the mech, but it couldn't stop a machine gun burst, let alone a PPC shot.

Moley fires LRMs at a distant Manticore, disabling it. Speaking of LRMs, our Shilone bomber zaps the back of an LRM Carrier, sending a follow-up salvo of LRMs in after breaching the armor. With four tons of LRM ammo exploding, the LRM Carrier disappears. Unfortunately, the aero jock is so busy patting himself on the back that he neglects to regain control of his aircraft after taking multiple LRMs up the tailpipe and crashes into the ground.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

Zenn7 steps back behind a rock outcropping to give his beat-up Awesome a break. As it turns out, it's unnecessary - the open comm frequency buzzes and out comes "... dropship Munro - cease fire, we surrender... " followed by rapid gunfire and what sounds like somebody's face getting mashed against a communications console.

"Is that Munro with an e at the end or without?" Stefan wonders.

The dropship does cease fire though, so we follow suit, concentrating on the anklebiters instead. Moley disables a second Manticore tank with an LRM salvo through one of its flanks directly into the engine, while Zarathud evaporates a previously disabled Scimitar whose crew have decided to play hero.

Our Stuka takes some AA fire and gets shot down, but the pilot is able to make a more or less controlled landing, so we'll be able to recover that particular aircraft.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Stefan moves up and just about removes a Vedette from the field, using lasers and a foot to take off all of its front armor and a large chunk of internal structure.

Seeing our mechs moving up and their dropship stop firing, the rest of the enemy units retreat to the south.

As much as we'd like to salvage the dropship, there's just no way we can. In addition to damage to the avionics system, their docking collar and K-F boom got wrecked, which means it wouldn't be able to dock with a jumpship, even if we got it flying. We let the crew (half of them messy, covered with blood and ash) get clear, then slag it.

El Guapo winds up escorting the salvage trucks back to base. The Shilone is basically a wreck, while the Stuka takes most of the week to fix. Our mechs are ready to go within a couple of days. Gbasden's arm will be in a cast for the next month.

Of course, as it turns out, it's irrelevant. Without the dropship, the remaining Kurita forces are unable to meaningfully oppose us, and we mop up the remaining targets within about two months, then pack it in and burn for the jump point. Our liaison is suitably impressed, though not impressed enough to authorize any bonuses. He delivers crushing handshakes all around and expresses a desire to work with us again, to "show those Dracs how it's done".

When we get to Outreach, the first thing we do is get our payment released from escrow. Between the salvage and the contract payment, our warchest is now sitting pretty at 226M C-Bills. We also buy a replacement Shilone, and put out feelers to the FedCom guys to see if we can get a replacement LBX autocannon.

We also have three contract offers:

Option 1:
The Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth is offering us a contract in the northern ass end of the periphery, in a place called *snicker* Butte Hold. It seems that a mercenary force that they dispatched to take care of some kind of periphery inheritance dispute has gotten themselves bogged down and need us to bail them out. I guess someone else took that contract we passed up a few months ago and botched it up. And lost a bunch of good mechs, from the looks of it, too.

Option 2:
The Capellan Confederation, of all the possibilities, is offering another relief duty contract. We are to travel to Chamdo (a few jumps south of Outreach), rescue elements of McCarron's Armored Cavalry, and help them complete their mission. The amount of money being offered is staggering, and the contract terms are pretty damn good too. Scrub comments that it's probably a trap.

Option 3:
The Federated Suns would like to offer us a third relief duty contract, which will send us to the south end of the inner sphere to bail out some of their mercenaries from a place called Camadierre, all the way in the Taurian Concordat. The Feds and the Taurians have always been at each other's throats, so it's not a surprise.

The Capellan contract is absolutely amazing. Could we spend a few million c-bills on hiring some spies and see if we can get the true story of what's going on? Put their negotiator in escrow along with our money and space him if it's not on the up and up?

Waitwaitwait a damn minute. Don't the Capellans despise us for all the ass whoopins we done put down on them? Why in in the name of Zeus's crackling blue butthole are they offering more than a third of a billion creds/90% salvage against regulars on a six-month jaunt? Something is fishy as my Auntie Bertha's briefs.

I say we take it.

"You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because you're all the same." ~Jonathan Davis

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert M. Hutchins

<still snickering after watching that video of the Guap trying to push his Marauder>

Err... contracts, right...

So we know what tech the Dracs are cooking up and it didn't sound too exciting. We know what tech anyone else is cooking up that might be something we want? (Streak SRM's from Marik, LBX AC's and XL engines FedRats, what about Lyran and Liao tech? Does Rasal's get any special tech?). Thinking that might play a factor in where we want to go.

Not keen on all the travel time to the periphery (months of travel time is costly to us, not making any money, just paying it then). And unless Liao has some tech we really want so we need to try to get back in their good graces, that's not a trap I want to spring. McCarron's ain't rookie mercs. If they're really in trouble it's something serious for that kind of money, or else it's a trap and we'll end up fighting them. Not thrilled by either prospect there. And what's up with all the liaison command?

I'm kinda leaning toward waiting another month. See if we can get something not so far out with good pay that doesn't reek of trap/getting screwed.

Option 3 interests me as the timeline is far shorter. 8 months out to the fringe of known space? Does somebody have a lead on some ancient Star League cache out there?

*rereads travel time*

Ah they are almost the same, but still, we can get back three months earlier.

I forgot to call it "a box of pure malevolent evil, a purveyor of
insidious insanity, an eldritch manifestation that would make Bill
Gates let out a low whistle of admiration," but it's all those, too.
-- David Gerard, Re: [Mediawiki-l] Wikitext grammar, 2010.08.06

The Capellans have MASC (putting aside their 4th succession war experience with that). And that's about it. It's basically a turbo booster for mechs. A mechwarrior can fire it up, moving their mech about 25% faster than usual with no degradation in targeting or evasion performance. The trick is that the MASC system heats up, and you might just blow out your actuators if you keep pushing it. It's also a pretty substantial refit, requiring almost factory-level facilities. Which we have access to, but... well, you know.

We have access to both Lyran and Fed tech, which includes XL Engines, Ultra and LBX autocannons (5 and 10 respectively). The Rasalhague guys don't have any of the good stuff yet, other than what they scrape together from salvage. The Free Worlds guys are working on missile tech, we've been hearing rumors about an advanced fire control system for missile launchers that increases their accuracy.

Liaison command is actually one of the better command clauses. It gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of how we go about accomplishing the overall contract objectives. We still have a guy looking over our shoulders, but he doesn't have direct command authority over us. And it usually means that we're still operating with some support. Independent is pretty good, but it means we're entirely on our own, while House and Integrated saddle us with assholes who can issue direct orders.

Being the mercenaries that we are, we can't pass up the huge payday. We confirm with Comstar that the money is in escrow already. We still need to worry about getting ripped off or set up, but we'll deal with it as it comes. Some last minute negotiations get us compensated for jumpship and dropship fuel costs, which adds a nice little extra bit to our profit margin. We sign the contract and begin our participation in Operation Sand Shield. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a replacement for Hyena's LBX autocannon, so the Striker will simply have to stick to the standard autocannon for now.

Chamdo orbits a medium-brightness orange star, a little bit cooler than the sun. So, even though it orbits at less than .28 AU, it's still, on average, freezing. It's also not recommended to ingest (or even smell) the local flora. Imagine having spring allergies, except your lungs explode. The population tends to live in domes - either because it's impractical to purge the local plant life, or because it's so damn cold outside.

Luckily, we drive battlemechs, so none of that should be a problem for us. We'll just need to make sure to keep our air filtration systems well-maintained. Despite all the new air filters, the Unions still smell like feet, though.

Spoiler:

Travel time is a little under a month, and takes us mostly through occupied FedCom systems.

Our mechwarriors improve their skills a little bit both en route and during the downtime on Outreach.

Hyena figures out how to fire his autocannon and other weapons on the mech at the same time.
Scrub improves her piloting ability.

Zarathud: Improve piloting from 3 to 2, or specialize in PPCs (+2 to hit with those)?
Paingod: Specialize in large lasers (which will kind of tie you to the Ostroc), PPCs (which will kind of tie you to the Griffin) or start down the Hopping/Jumping Jack track (makes it easier to shoot while jumping)?
Freyland: Improve piloting from 3 to 2, "jumping jack", melee specialist?

Chamdo was actually captured relatively recently by Federated Suns forces, during the 4th Succession War. In the process, most of its orbital defenses (if there were any in the first place) were probably destroyed, and so, our landing is uncontested - we establish a landing zone and begin running patrols, as well as making contact with elements of the McCarron's Armored Cavalary. According to the liaison, the planet was initially defended by local militia, but then elements of the 12th Vegan Rangers moved in and scattered the MAC's forces to the four winds. Our first goal is to collect the wayward sheep. The liaison is pretty tight-lipped about their goals, but it's likely that the Capellans' goal here is to cause enough damage to get the FedCom guys to divert forces from the Draconis Combine front.

Within a couple of days, the sensors on our Union detect an unidentified dropship coming down a little too close to our staging area. The liaison informs us that this dropship has been hanging around for a while and providing the locals with an undesirable mobility advantage, so she'll be joining one of our lances in taking it down.

A lance of MAC units wants to rendezvous with us, but has been blocked by a large group of militia units and infantry and needs us to help them punch a hole. Scrub says either Gamma-One or Alpha-Two can handle this one.

Finally, the MAC have been trying to capture a particular enemy commander in charge of operations around here, but have so far gotten their asses kicked, and ask for help.

Add PPC skill - the Awesome is all about the damage. Not wiping out would be nice but not as nice as blowing up the enemy

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. - Nixon"I don't stand by anything." - Trump“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867

Alpha 1 to the commander, Beta 1 to the dropship, Gamma 1 to the link up with MAC.

Is it too late to suggest we should split our forces? Send part of the team here and part to Butte Hold? We could send the Guap and his super secret lightening fart force (whatever he called it) to Butte Hold and the rest of us could come here.